As a lifelong, devout Shakespearean, I traffic in imagery. In travelling to the UK to pursue graduate studies in English, I sought to theorise the force of Shakespearean language as the intersection of character, narrative and rhetoric in his plays. In my reading, I encountered texts which brought the art of rhetoric to life: Puttenam’s The Arte of English Poesie (1589), Lakoff and Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By (1980) and many various others. I dissected speech forms and discovered their anatomy. I learned how character is made of stories and language, and that identity is a function of the images used to construct it.

Through these studies, I came to understand rhetoric as a life force. After all - and at its origins - the goal of rhetoric is to ‘move’ people (L. movere), which it does through speech gestures. These movements - as figures of speech - have particular structures, shapes and styles, like the myriad plants in nature. In this metaphorical vein, a botanical catalogue of rhetorical figures can be found on the Silva Rhetoricae (‘The Forest of Rhetoric’) website created and maintained by Dr Gideon Burton of Brigham Young University.

Towards my thesis, I developed a rhetorical theory for Shakespeare’s King Henry V. I argued for Henry’s character life as a rhetorical journey, in which the prodigal Prince Hal pretends to waste time in the pub with the vain and boastful Sir John Falstaff - the comic and portly figure of copia (defined by Erasmus as an abundant and ready supply of language) - who serves as Hal’s rhetorical instructor. Over 1 and 2 Henry IV and Henry V, Henry engages in an extensive education, encountering and absorbing rhetorical figures, to emerge as the rhetorical master and legendary leader that moves his soldiers and his audience in Henry V.

All my studies and insights were made possible by the financial and moral support of my father, who turns 80 this week. As a career medical doctor, he has been an avid gardener in his own time, and I have always delighted in the spaces made beautiful by his efforts - in the gardens of his home and in those of my own mind. What grows by our efforts is both tangible and abstract, and it defines our lives and the lives of those we serve. De copia verborum: A legacy of lifelong learning, of language and ongoing growth in the world.